Of course it’s worth bearing in mind that anybody that gives their assets out via Marketplace can be victims of Piracy or File-Sharing (posting screenshots of materials etc would be file-sharing really). It’s just that Blueprints and engine-created content is much easier to duplicate.
Honestly though, there’s not much that can be done about it. Blueprints are supposed to be a flexible as possible, and I highly doubt that any blueprint stuff sold on the marketplace wouldn’t need customizing and adapting to suit somebodies project. Otherwise we’ll end up with an awful lot of cloned games out there. Eventually of course the things you have learned and sold will be known by a much larger user-base and sales will decline, but that’s just the life cycle of anything you sell! It has a nice side-effect though, it pushes you to learn more cool things to teach the community
TL;DR: I wouldn’t expect to be able to make continuous money from a Blueprint or editor-created project. I see no reason why you couldn’t build your content in C++ and distribute it without source code eventually though (when we get that functionality). Of course, Epic may have rules against that too! Time will tell
Blueprints are supposed to be as flexible as possible, but C++ is not? Blueprint stuff sold on the market will need customizing but C++ stuff will not? Are you kidding me?
So Blueprints should be open and extensible, but C++ should not? Tell me, did the source access for Unreal Engine mean anything to you when you signed up? It sure as hell did for me.
I am going to treat paying customers like scum? Really? I am trying to provide the possible customers, a way to test it before buying. So, calm down.
You need some glasses! I said that this protection would be only for releasing demos, for people to try. When buying the product, it would go unprotected of course I don’t want to protect what I sell, but only the trial version. Get it?
“It would be nice if we have something like Blueprint protection. This way, people selling Blueprints on the marketplace, could share level demonstration for people to test what those Blueprints does without having access to it, before buying it anyway”
I would be better for everybody, if anyone could test it before buying, don’t you think? But for blueprints, if releasing it without any protection. Why would people buy it latter, if they would have access to everything with a demo?
Veovis, calm down man. Do understand how a trial software works or not? Is for people to try the software functionality without having access to all. People would test it, and if they like it, they would buy it then, and it would go without any protection.
I’m planning on doing some blueprint only marketplace projects. Personally I think, at least for now, it’s just going to be a matter of not having demos.
Even if there were a protection scheme in place, the code would have to know how to unpack it, meaning that it’s functionally unprotected anyway. I know that was mentioned and that it’d be better to have some protection than none, but these sorts of schemes are usually fairly complex… and ultimately not worth it because of how easy they are to get around.
For my part, I just look at it that anyone who pirates my projects probably wouldn’t have bought them anyway, so it’s kind of moot to dedicate time to it.
I don’t want to protect what I sell, but only the trial version. Get it?